Adventures of Ice Cream
by rasfruitin
Summary: After Neopolitan was whisked away by the wind from the top of an Atlesian airship, she went unnoticed for a while, until resurfacing in a bar to meet an old friend, long since changed by her newfound Maiden powers. Have you ever wondered just what exactly she was up to during that time? Rated M just to be safe, most likely suitable for teens.
1. Contemplation

**Please note that this takes place directly after Neo's last appearance in volume 3, and I hope to write what I imagine she was up to up until she reappears in volume 6 across the whole fic. I'll most likely stick to whats canon in the show, but that might change depending on where the story goes.**

As Neopolitan dangled from her parasol, she grumbled to herself. Or at least she would have, had she been born with working vocal cords. Instead she just thought angrily, and with a scowl on her face, unlike the smug smile that was usually plastered on her mouth.

She had been bested by a little schoolgirl who, despite looking the part, was _two years younger _than the rest of her school year at Beacon Academy. Neo, a world class fighter, thief, and highwayman had been outsmarted by a huntress-in-training. Well, with any luck, Roman would of finished things up with "little red", as he affectionately called her, by now and would be on his way to scoop Neo out of the air in an Atlesian airship. After all, Neo wasn't going anywhere other than down, and very, _very _slowly. Unfortunately, she wouldn't get to see Ruby Rose's head fall limply against the floor at the foot of Roman's combat prowess, as Ruby had been smarter than she thought possible of a girl her age and pulled open Neo's parasol, which had carried her way with the wind. If Neo was to be honest, she thought the girl had been just as good at fighting as the rest of the students at the school, despite being younger. She had to hand it to the girl, she was a worthy opponent.

About 10 minutes passed, and Neo began to worry. What if Ruby had beaten Roman? What if Roman simply didn't care enough to come and get her? What if they had both been devoured by a Griffon? Although the thought was small and somewhat insignificant, it began to grow like a tumor the more Neo thought about it. She fished out her scroll from her back pocket, fumbling and nearly dropping the thing down to the forest below. She opened it and hovered her finger over the "Call" button. She weighed out the possible outcomes in her head. Roman could have finished with the fight, disposed of the body, had a party, and be on his way to help right now. Alternatively, however, he could still be in the middle of a heated battle and the buzz of the scroll could throw him off balance or distract him. Despite what people thought, Neo and Roman were not incredibly close. They were friends of course, close friends at that, so Neo thought it would be best if she didn't get him killed the first time something went wrong. Neo thought that if given time, maybe they could've got a little more... intimate, but for now, she had to direct her thoughts elsewhere, like how not to fall into a Grimm filled forest. She hit call.

One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Fou-

The phone answered, but there was no one speaking on the other end. Roman wasn't an idiot, despite what he may let on, and he knew that when Neo called, he had to speak first. And last. And everywhere else in the conversation too. No voice on the other end of the line meant one of two things: Someone else had picked up the scroll, or-

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud and sudden screech on the other end of line.

-or the worst had happened to Roman. Another loud whine crackled out from the scroll, sounding like metal grinding against a saw blade. The one thing that Neo thought was least possible had been the outcome. He had been killed by a Grimm. Knowing him, it was probably in the middle of a charismatic and also time wasting monologue, lasting just long enough to get himself killed. Neo's heart sunk. She now knew that no one was coming to save her from above, and no one was going to catch her when she fell. She was just floating idly in the sky, waiting for a rescue that would never come, hanging from a parasol that was impossibly slowing her descent. Whilst Neo stared off into the distance, her heels clicked against something hard, and, surprised by the sudden sensation, her knees buckled and sent her tumbling down a large boulder. She quickly launched off of the solid surface mid-roll and used her parasol to float down again, this time paying attention to where she was going. _Nailed it. _She hit the ground and stood for a few seconds, taking in her surroundings. She was in the middle of the forest surrounding Beacon, with the only discernible landmark being Beacon Tower itself and the top parts of the academy. After a few moments, making sure that the surrounding forest was devoid of Grimm, she collapsed onto her rear, drawing her knees up to her chest, leaning her chin on them, and resting her parasol on the ground next to her legs. She sat like this for almost an hour, waiting for something to bring her out of deep thought. During this time, she thought of what would happen now. She weighed out her options, wondering what the best course of action would be. She could do practically anything illegal, being a connoisseur of all things morally incorrect, and a lot of legal things too, but she mentally agreed with herself that legal plans of attack are usually the most boring. Most of all, she thought of Roman. It struck Neo as a surprise that the man she had worked beside for these last few months had made such an impression on her mind, and it was most surprising that, now she came to realize it, she had always thought of Roman like that.

_I guess you never know how much you love something until you lose it, huh? _Neo pondered to herself, inside the confines of her mind.

In the end, she agreed to not dwell on the past, or at least do so when in a comfy bed at an inn that she hadn't paid for. Eventually, she settled upon hiking it to the nearest town that wasn't anywhere near Beacon, and bedding down for the time being. Then, something weird happened. A brilliant white light erupted from the top of Beacon Tower, enveloping most of the academy and turning the giant Wyvern atop the tower to stone. A white light, followed by Grimm turning to stone... Then it hit Neo like a truck rolling down a hill. Ruby had silver eyes. It had struck her during their first meeting, and she had later looked through Ruby's info and confirmed her suspicions. Despite this, she didn't think that Ruby would know how to use them yet, if at all, without a mentor. The only time Neo had ever heard of silver eyes being used was decades before she was born, when the Grimm Reaper had taken out a large pack of Beowolves about to attack a small and undefended town in the outskirts of Vale. Still, despite only hearing about the phenomenon once in passing, the story of the silver-eyed warriors was the stuff of legend. Fearless leaders, able to destroy massive groups of Grimm with the literal blink of an eye. The description was unmistakable, always a flash of white light, followed by any Grimm caught in the area turning to stone, but never any humans or faunus. Ruby Rose, a silver-eyed warrior. This was just what Neo needed to snap her out of her thoughts, and she realized that after the whole thing had boiled over, they would come looking for her. Not wanting to have to waste anymore time on killing any huntsmen that came to find her, Neo picked up her parasol, stood up, stretched her back and began walking south, away from Vale. And away from her past.


	2. Exhaustion

**Hope you like reading, because this chapter is over double the length of the last one. I prefer writing longer chapters rather than shorter ones, but I don't mind either way, so feel free to tell me what you prefer reading.**

**_Massive_ thanks to Viyellax for beta reading chapter 1 and this one, and for giving me some songs to write to. She doesn't have any stories but I felt bad just getting her to proof read my stuff without giving thanks.**

* * *

Neo's eyes crept open, simultaneously remembering how good it felt to lay without a worry in a comfy bed. She stretched her arms out, inadvertently being pretty damn adorable.

"You know, you've always looked cute in the mornings"

Neo looked to her right side and, to her surprise, Roman Torchwick sat propped up against the headboard of the rich mahogany bed. Neo realized what had happened the previous day, but for some reason wasn't concerned. It didn't seem weird at all that this previously dead man was laying beside her in bed. It felt normal, familiar, like this had happened countless times before, and would happen for years to come.

"Thanks"

Neo froze. Through all her 21 years of life, she hadn't said a word. She couldn't. Neo didn't remember her parents at all, they likely abandoned her on the street, and she had to learn to live off of her new home, adapting and becoming the master thief she was now. She did know, however, that she had severed vocal cords. It was her curse, or rather, blessing, that she could never utter a single word. She didn't know if this was a birth defect or if someone had purposely inflicted this wound, but it was a part of her nonetheless and she had learnt to live with it. But here, in the comfort of a cozy bed, she had spoken like it was second nature. She looked to Roman, thinking he might be just as surprised as she was, but he just stared into the distance. A flame erupted in his eyes, followed by the sound of something sharp cutting through the wind. His eyes slowly rolled back into his head, revealing strained and bloodshot white eyeballs. His throat started to leak blood, and began to slowly slide to the left, like something out of a cartoon when it had been cut clean in two. Neo couldn't bear to watch anymore, and screwed her eyes shut, shielding herself from the horrible vision that threatened to invade her consciousness.

When she opened them again, she wasn't in a blood-soaked bed, or even a bed at all, or a room for that matter. Slowly, but surely, she regained memory of what had happened. Taking in her immediate surroundings, she sighed a heavy breath.

_A dream. Just a dream._ She thought, trying to convince herself that whatever terrible event had just transpired was only her mind playing tricks on her.

She thought back to her dream, well, _nightmare_, and played it back in her head. She had spoken during her dream. This might have seemed normal to anyone looking in from outside Neo's mind, but this was _literally impossible._ She had spoken actual words, despite never knowing what movements her mouth needed to make to produce legible sounds, never mind words. Being born with severed vocal cords had also made speaking impossible, despite whether she knew how to do it or not. She had pondered what her voice would sound like if she had one, but she had never settled on a conclusion. It would probably be somewhere in the range of 'incredibly cute' and 'inexplicably menacing', a bit like Cinder's.

_Cinder._

She was there too, in the dream. It had to be her. That unmistakable flame. I mean, with a name like 'Cinder' it couldn't be anyone else's flames inside the dream. Cinder had always had a thing for fire, as Neo had noticed whenever they fought together every now and then. There was fire dust woven into her clothes, she incorporated it into all of her weapons, and her name fit the bill perfectly. She had led Roman around in her silly little game, dragging him around into all of her messes, making him do the dirty work and finally passing him off to whoever wanted him after she was done. If it wasn't for Cinder and her so called 'master plan', Roman would still be alive and kicking, and maybe _actually_ in a bed next to Neo. Neo had tried to 'talk' Roman out of this partnership, but no matter what she did, he would always come back to the same response: "I made a deal, Neo. And I intend to make good on it." It was equally Cinder's fault just as it was that little red brat's.

_Ruby_.

She had been there too. The scythe she wielded, that damned Crescent Rose that had bested her and Roman too many times. The slice through the air, and the clean cut that followed. When Neo was perusing Ruby's file, it made a note that she had been trained by Qrow Branwen at Signal Academy, a master huntsman, and the brother of the infamous Raven Branwen. With scythe skills akin to Qrow himself, Ruby could slice clean through Grimm in a single motion, and the same went for the soft human flesh of Roman's neck. Despite the fact that Ruby hadn't directly dealt the final blow, she may as well have led the griffon to Roman's exact position and held him under its toothy maw. She wouldn't allow either of them to survive. Both of them had to answer for their crimes against Neo, and she had just the torture methods in mind.

She realized that several beowolves had been attracted to her negativity and were circling the area menacingly, promptly snapping her out of her rage-induced hatred trance.

_No problem._ She thought to herself, a smug smile pulling at her lips.

Neo drew the hidden blade out of the handle of her parasol and set into a fighting stance. A beowolf charged full speed straight at her, but Neo didn't even flinch. The monster was none the wiser to her plan, and as the wind died out, the beast let out a piercing roar and smashed straight into Neo. She smashed to pieces, shattering like glass, spreading out across the coarse dirt beneath them. Before any of them could comprehend what had happened, Neo reappeared behind the beasts neck, and plunged her sword deep into its flesh, passing through like butter and piercing through the other side of its throat. The monster faded away to smoldering, black ash, getting carried away by the growing wind. She raised her sword arm and readied herself into a defensive stance, and awaited the next charge, this time ready to fight head-on. Three beowolves came galloping at her, one from ahead, one behind, and another not far from her left side. The two in front and behind reached her first, and with what seemed like no effort at all, Neo leaped into the air, allowing the two of them to collide and disorientate themselves. She landed next to the third, striking it in the side. Her blade connected with hard bone-plating and the feeling reciprocated through the metal, and into her hand, giving off a tingling feeling, not unlike when you smack your funny bone. Using her free hand, she swung the non-bladed side of her two-piece parasol at the creature's head, smashing straight against its bulging right eye. It screamed and swung wildly at Neo, narrowly missing her ice cream-themed hair. She took the opportunity to attack when the beast wasn't thinking clearly, if it could think at all, and sliced her blade into the thing's left forearm, cleaving it's claw straight off. It reared onto it's hind legs and clutched at the gaping wound, already cauterized with black ash. Neo wasted no time at all and leaped up to it's upper torso, thrusting her sword into it's chest, and let gravity carry her and her sword straight through the monster's stomach. It fell to ash and was carried away just as the other two refocused on Neo. With adrenaline running through her veins, Neo was prepared for a two-on-one fight, so she ran full speed towards the two of them, only to trip on a rock halfway there.

_Bad luck._

Her falling body shattered against the ground and Neo appeared at the side of the two beasts, diving straight into them both, sword first, skewering them like kebab meat. The first crumbled away, leaving the final beowolf to scream and wail in pain, as only the final few centimeters had pierced it's soft and unarmored side. Neo might've taken pity on the thing, had it been created with a soul in the first place. Instead she sadistically sliced an 'N' shape into it's soft underbelly, smiled at her accuracy, and left it to writhe in pain. Neo silently strolled off, in the same direction she had been travelling previously, the smug grin that had persisted the entire battle widening with the sounds of unimaginable pain erupting from behind her. With any luck, the rest of the Grimm in the area would be attracted to the immense wounds inflicted upon their comrade.

Her falling over during the battle might've worked in her favor in the end, but it was a spur of the moment thing. Things like that didn't happen to trained killers. That happened to amateurs. Either Neo needed to train more than she already did, or something else was afoot. A bad feeling leaned towards the latter. At any rate, the fight was over and, as expected, she had emerged victorious. She could now continue on her merry way to who knows where, in hopes of finding somewhere safe, secure, and warm. The walk south was accompanied by nothing but the occasional caw of a singular crow, and the slow and small beat of wind.

After roughly 3 hours of slow, rhythmic walking with nothing to distract Neo's mind from wandering, she happened upon two gates, about the size of two average sized people each (or three Neo sized people). She hadn't seen these gates until she was standing about 15 meters away, despite them being about three times her height, and she only noticed them at all because the dirt path that she was following turned to sparse cobbles, causing her to look up. Neo walked closer to the gates, and just as she was about to push them open, a whirring sound was heard, followed by microphone static.

"Hey there lady, can you uhhhh..." Neo waited for the mysterious voice to continue, and heard the sound of paper rustling. "yeah, umm, can you tell me why you're here? We heard the news about Beacon, and we saw it too. We don't wanna end up like them, if you don't mind."

This was a situation and a half. Neo spotted a video camera underneath the loudspeaker, and let out a metaphorical sigh of relief. She didn't know sign language, as she'd never had the opportunity to learn, but then again she doubted the man behind the camera did either. She put her pointer finger to her lips and shrugged her shoulders, hoping that this guy wasn't as stupid as she thought.

"...What?"

Neo closed her eyes in disbelief, and sighed for real this time. She grabbed her parasol and started to draw something into the mostly dry dirt path underneath her feet. She thanked her lucky star that the cobblestone path was poorly maintained, or else she would have had to break in and explain herself afterwards. Not hard by any standard, but harder than the gate being opened for her. She stepped back and admired her handiwork, moving out of the way of the camera.

The guard was silent for a second, most likely reading the message, and then he let out a noise that could only be described as both relieved and happy that he wasn't witnessing some secret code for 'I'm gonna murder you'. "Riiiiiight. You can't talk then?"

Neo nodded.

"Cool, I'll get you a notepad, and then you can explain yourself. Come right in, ice-cream lady." The nickname on the end wasn't something Neo hated, as it sort of came as a package deal with the appearance. After all, she _did_ resemble ice cream quite heavily.

The gates creaked open, and before she slipped through, she turned and rubbed away the word 'MUTE' with her foot. She had noticed over the past few months that being a mute was a lot better than she had previously thought. She could almost always use it as a way to buy time, or in some cases avoid explaining things all together. It also meant that she could never be given away by her voice, and she would never have to mask her voice in the rare case of her being caught. Although she also couldn't shout at anyone who annoyed her, so it was a two-way street. She moved swiftly towards the guardhouse beside the gates, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible and find somewhere to sleep, despite it being midday. She was ushered in by who she assumed was the same guard that spoke over the loudspeaker, as there was no one else around. He made eye contact and looked about to say something, but he stopped himself. Neo loved it when people gave her eyes attention. She had always been one to draw a crowd, hence the bright outfit and eye-catching semblance, so she relished the opportunity to bewilder people with her eyes. As if to taunt the poor man, she blinked, and the pink and brown coloured irises switched places, now corresponding with the sides of her hair. She blinked again, returning them back to their normal positions. She sat down on the chair that was pulled up beside a dull, grey, bare, boring and unremarkable metal table. The chair wasn't the worst she'd ever sat in, but it was getting there. The guard still stood at the door, mouth slightly agape at the spectacle he had just witnessed. His face was priceless. Neo knocked on the table and waved a hand at the man, snapping him out of his daydream and back to reality.

"Oh, sorry miss, its just that, well, your eyes are... " Neo wondered whether he would have to die. He didn't know it, but his life depended on these next words. "Wild." Neo wasn't sure if that was an insult or a compliment, but she barely had the energy to care at all. He would live for now.

"Here you are miss. Sorry about any inconveniences, but we don't get many mutes around here. Actually, I think you're the first one. Like, ever." He remarked as he handed Neo a slightly tattered, but mostly well kept plain lined notepad. "So, let's start easy: what brings you to the small and simple town of Sidwold?" Neo had never heard of any place called 'Sidwold' before and, if she was to be honest, she felt sorry for whoever settled the town, as it was likely their less than ideal family name that was the town's namesake. She made a mental side-note to visit some nicer sounding towns whilst on her quest for vengeance.

She was ready to write her answer, when she realized she didn't have a pen. She gestured down to the paper and motioned her hands as if she was writing something.

"Oh, sorry. Like I say, I was kinda unprepared for someone like_ you_ to show up." He said, sounding snarky and frankly pretty damn rude. He may have to die after all. He handed her a pen and she reluctantly wrote her reply.

_I was a resident combat demonstrator at Beacon Academy, and when the attack started I was out in the forest surrounding the city, on a routine patrol mission. All I could do was watch as a giant Grimm flew across the skies overhead and invaded my home. I realized that one combat instructor who couldn't utter even a single evacuation order wouldn't do much good, so I thought it best to get to another Kingdom as fast as possible to request help. I'm currently looking for anywhere or anyone that could help me get to any other kingdom at all, no matter which one._

Despite Neo not being able to speak, and being brought up in a street crime/underworld organisation, she knew how someone's impression of you could change depending on how smart and proper you were. She never usually communicated this formally, and guaranteed herself that if she could speak, it would never, _ever _be this formal. After all, sometimes you have to stick to your roots.

As the guard read over the short and completely fabricated story, Neo had to keep on restoring faith in herself that it would work. Being a resident at the academy would explain why she didn't return to try and defend her home, and there was no way she could pass for a student, despite only being able to reach 4' 10" _in high heels._ She wouldn't make a very good teacher, because no amount of chalkboard writing could say as much as another, more vocal candidate. So, a voiceless combat demonstrator was the best and only option. As an added bonus, she also had the abilities to prove her position if the need would arise. A thought popped into her head at that moment, and she picked up the pen once more, scribbling her name on the paper whilst the man was still reading it.

He set the notepad back down on the table and said the exact thing Neo wanted to hear: "I'm not gonna lie to ya, Neo, but your name was just about my only other question, and you've answered that one too." Neo could write stories all day long, but the chair she rested upon was beginning to feel uncomfortable. "I'll get your records checked out and everything, but for now you're free to go. You got a family name I can find you by?" Neo shook her head, subconsciously wondering what it once was. "Well, I'm sure there's only one Neo 'round here anyway. I'll be seeing you when I get these files checked. Until then, there's an inn just round the bend. Later." Finally, sweet release from the confines of that damn chair. She didn't worry about having her records checked, as it would probably never reach Beacon in its current state, and if it did, she would be long gone already anyway.

Neo may as well have ran to that inn, needing to get a comfortable rest so badly it hurt. She didn't need any words, or pen and paper, as enough lien will get you anywhere without explanation. Neo simply pointed to the available single-bed room and pulled 250 lien from her pocket. This overpaid by 50, but the more money you put up on the table, the less questions you're likely to get. It's not like it mattered anyway, because as soon as Neo had heard the register close, she shattered the lien into glass shards, breathing a sigh of relief that she could maintain an illusion for any time at all in this state.

She fell face first onto the bed, not bothering to undress or even take off her boots. She was out the moment her head connected with the pillow.

* * *

**I'd really appreciate feedback on how the combat was written, because I've never written anything like that before and would love to do more in the future.**** Obviously I would really appreciate it if anyone took their time to write feedback on any part of the chapter, whether it be a sentence or an essay.**


	3. Curiosity

**I was gonna try and write a new chapter a day, but school was like "nah mate, you wanna write? well write a 2000 word essay on the bioethics of gene editing"**

**tl;dr, school hates me, as it does ****everyone**

**Swearing in this chapter too, so get out your bible**

**Also big thanks again to Viyellax for being the best beta reader in all of Yorkshire (probably) check her out, pretty sure she'll be getting her first story up soon so watch out for that!**

* * *

Neo awoke, this time _actually_ in a comfy bed. Her eyes opened slowly, blinking as she took in the slight rays of light that were peeking through the gap in the curtains. She wiped sleep from her eyes and wondered how she'd managed to pull herself under the quilt and also throw a pillow onto the floor all in her sleep. She stood, only to have to immediately sit down again. She hadn't slept like this in months, maybe even years, and she couldn't just leave this quickly. Neo gave in to her urges and sat, taking in the sweet aroma of the lavender and rosewood scented diffuser that was placed picturesquely on the windowsill. The smell was oddly familiar somehow. It was a smell that reminded her of her childhood, despite not knowing anything about it. Neo often tried to remember her childhood, before she was cast out onto the streets. She wanted most to remember her parents, but she didn't know why. She always tried to put on a strong face on to mask her feelings for her past, but trying to hide your own feelings from yourself never works out in the end. Deep down she couldn't tell why she wanted so badly to remember, whether it was motherly love she wanted, someone to resent and blame for condemning her to this life of crime, or just a sense of closure.

Neo wandered around the room for what felt like hours whilst just taking in the feeling of being comfortable. Being a world-renowned criminal came with its perks, but none of those perks were a nice bed in a cozy inn in a small rural town. The feeling of being away from all signs of violence was one that had eluded Neo for some time, being that she had just assisted in overthrowing all of Beacon. The room was a sight to behold in its own right; seamless wooden walls merged into one in the corners, giving the impression that the room was made from one block of wood and not panels. They cut off at the meeting point between the walls and the ceiling, creating a contrast of a white painted ceiling and a rich, golden-brown set of oaken walls. The carpet lining the floor didn't look like much - just a smooth carpet laid out from wall to wall - but if you were to stand in that room, you would feel otherwise. Neo could feel the sheer comfort through her high heels, and as she removed them it felt as if she sank a full foot into the floor. She collapsed to her knees as she was overcome by pure ecstasy, and she pressed her face against the carpet, about ready to fall asleep again. She rolled herself out, spread-eagled. Despite her efforts to spread out as much as possible, she still barely covered half of the space between the bed and the wall. The bed was set out in the center of the room, with equal amount of space between each side and its corresponding wall, with a bedside table on each side. Despite this being a room with a single bed, it was definitely _not_ a one person room. Despite this town being small, poorly named, and seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it had a surprisingly high-class inn to house people that probably only stayed for one night - if they ever arrived at all. It's not like Neo needed the extra space however, as her small frame allowed her to sleep anywhere but a baby's crib. After reluctantly picking herself up from the floor, she shambled her way sleepily into the en-suite bathroom, which had a moderately sized bath, more than enough for Neo however, a sink, a toilet, and a shower head that was tucked away against the wall. The en-suite was tiled from floor to ceiling in white slabs, giving the impression that this was some other place, completely separated from the rustic-looking bedroom. She started to run the bath, stepping out to move the scented diffuser from the bedroom into the bathroom. The water was just the right temperature, not hot enough to make you sweat, but hot enough to make you jump when you first get in. Neo said a solemn goodbye to the heavenly floor in the bedroom and undressed on the less than impressive, cold (and definitely nowhere near as comfy) tiled floor in the bathroom. As she slid into the bath, her lower-back-length hair floated around behind her, creating a surprisingly comfortable back pillow to lean against. Neo laid in this bath until her fingertips started to wrinkle, at which point the diffuser had turned the room into a sauna of lush fragrances and hot steam, lulling Neo to sleep. As she drifted into unconsciousness, something jerked her out of her relaxation;

"...and then he drew his sword and SLICED IT IN TWO DUDE! _**STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE!**_" Neo heard a stunned gasp from outside the room, followed by a quiet, but noticeable, "holy shit, man"that seemed to fade in as the two boys came to lean against the wall outside of her room. Neo chuckled to herself at what sounded like a couple of young lads talking about their first encounter with a huntsman. Her chuckle came out as just scattered breaths, but it's the thought that counts. Neo listened closer, to catch a glimpse of some action around here, but instead heard something completely different, and something a _lot _more useful.

"...they can find anyone at all. At least, that's what I hear." What sounded like a deep male voice emanated from the wall just outside her room. She pressed her ear against the tiles. "The Spiders, that's what they're called. I'm pretty sure anyway. I mean, Dan's never been the most reliable source, but he seemed deadly serious this time 'round."

Another man's voice, notably higher pitched, but not enough to sound childish, came through the wall, "What makes him think he knows what he's on about anyway, d'you remember that time he said that his Dad was an Atlas military general? His dad's never even _been_ to Atlas - i asked him myself! Dan's full of shit and he knows it."

"Yeah, but he had a look in his eyes this time. Evidence to back it up, too." The first man replied, lowering his tone to sound more serious. "He told me that he asked them to find out about me, just to test out their services, and they told him things that I haven't even told _you._"

The second man fell deadly silent, seemingly shut up by this proposal. Neo was interested, understandably. He spoke up after a few seconds, "So lets say I wanted to find somebody, _hypothetically_, they could get them? Anyone at all?"

The first speaker hummed a confirming tune, following it up by saying, "They could steal the Queen's panties if you gave them enough money, I bet."

"Which kingdom?"

"I don't know man, it was just an example- look, the point is, they can get anyone. If you _were_ to want someone found, you can always identify them by th..." The voice faded out as the man presumably leaned in closer and lowered his tone. Neo pulled the plug out from the drain underneath her legs and stepped out of the bath. She pulled on her clothes, only to realize the futility of having a bath only to put sweaty clothes on straight after. She would have to buy new clothes later on, but right now she had to figure out who these 'Spiders' were and how to find them. _This might be the only chance I'll get to find... them._ She thought to herself, as she buttoned up her knee-length high heeled boots. _I'ts about time for some new shoes, too._

She twisted the doorknob around, pulling the door ajar and taking a peek into the bar that most likely made the bulk of the money that was keeping the inn out of the red, as a small town in the middle of nowhere probably didn't get many visitors. Her eyes widened almost comically as she glanced into the town's only meeting place. It was a room filled to the brim with tables, and those tables were filled to the brim with heartily laughing men and women, human and faunus alike. Because the negative emotions of just one person could start a chain reaction that would destroy the whole place, it wasn't unusual for a small town like this to not segregate any races, species or genders. It wasn't this that was surprising Neo, however. It was how a town with such a lackluster name as 'Sidwold' could house so many people. There was so many people, in fact, that there were people just sat leant against the walls of the place, acting like it was commonplace. _Have some decency, jeez! _Neo thought to herself as she observed a man who had spilled his beer all over himself and decided to pass the time sleeping on the floor outside of her room. _At 10 a.m._ She had never touched booze much herself, as the one time she had, she slept for 18 hours straight and woke up with a headache that could rival being stabbed. She had experienced both, and she would take a cold steel blade over a cold steel tankard any day of the week. Besides, she fought sloppily whilst under the influence anyway. She sidestepped over the unconscious body and made her way through the mass of people, careful to not knock anyone over, or rather not get knocked over herself. She made her way to the door after not hearing anything of interest about these mysterious 'Spiders' from the various conversations she had eavesdropped on during her short trek to the other end of the bar. If nothing else, Neo was a master on listening in to things she most likely shouldn't ever hear. The door opened onto an average street, not befitting of the bustling, well kept and high quality inn that sat besides the street. It was nothing to scoff at, but no red carpet either. Her eyes were drawn towards a large clock tower at the end of the road, culminating in some sort of plaza or town square. The tower was overlooking what seemed to be a market, filled with all kinds of obscure and wonderful goods, ranging from dust crystals to on-the-go cocktail shakers, just at a glance. The perfect place to pick up some gossip. And also, just maybe, get a new set of clothes.

* * *

**As per usual, I appreciate any reviews and I'll try and be more consistent with my updates from now on.**

**Thanks for reading my trash**


	4. Out with the Old, In with the New

**I have decided officially to write all the background character dialogue in Yorkshire dialect and slang, because I thought it'd be funny and I'm a pro at speaking it. Gotta keep it local ya know.**

**Also now its a school holiday so I'm either gonna have more free time to write more, or I'm gonna be filling my free time with other irl related stuff and therefore I'll be writing less. Soooooo, results are inconclusive right now.**

**As per usual, thanks to Viyellax even though she didn't proofread this time, but at least she kept me company on Discord.**

* * *

The path towards the market was... disappointing, to say the least. Despite the market itself looking inviting, colourful, and otherwise beautiful, the road towards it got increasingly less elegant. The stark contrast between the interior of the inn and the road outside was weird in its own right, but the change in quality here was downright crazy. The houses beside the road weren't dilapidated or anything, they were just boring. They were painted in flat colours, some not painted at all, just bare bricks and wood. A quick glance down the road from the houses however, and it was a completely different world. Lush trees, lined up down the side of the paths, various brightly coloured market stalls beamed out from underneath the looming town centre clock tower. A massive (for a small town, anyway), intricately built and just as intricately decorated building that must have been at least 40 metres. This left it towering over the rest of the skyline, being visible from just about anywhere in the town. As she glanced at the clock, it was about thirty seconds away from striking noon. Neo had always been a late riser. She walked towards the market, almost stumbling over the loosely placed cobbles beneath her feet, wondering how on Remnant people wheeled fruit stalls across this stuff without smashing their melons off the floor. Just as the cobbles started to increase in quality as Neo neared the market, the bell rung inside the clock tower, sounding midday. The bell was quite elegant, Neo thought to herself as it rung. It sounded just like the church bells that had rung out when she was a child. She never entered one of the churches though, whether it was because she was scared of what would happen to a top tier sinner like her, or just simply because Neo was small and the church doors were too big for her liking. The bell stopped ringing after about seven chimes - Neo had lost count when she had drifted off into nostalgia. She pressed on, towards the market, hoping to find some information and a way out of this odd town. As she crossed the threshold into the town square, the cobbles changed in favour of red bricks, patterned diagonally. At the same time, her nostrils were overrun by an assortment of smells - ranging from meaty to fruity, fragrant to bland, and Neo swore she could smell the hint of something _illegal_ in there too.

The market was filled to the brim with customers and vendors alike, faunus, human, tall, short, black, white. Despite Neo's cold and ruthless heart, it made her feel a tinge of happiness to see such community spirit and equality in the world. Even if it was non-existent in the big cities, at least it was somewhere on Remnant, albeit the far-flung and hard to reach corners of it. She pushed her way through the crowd, spotting a clothing stall set up right across from the entrance. She kept an ear open for any information on these so called "Spiders" that could supposedly find anyone. It wouldn't be much of a challenge to find the one girl who blasted a tower-sized Grimm to stone in a fiery blaze of anger, and the youngest ever attendee at Beacon Academy, but Cinder would be another story, so Neo thought it best to enlist professional help on this job. She reached the clothing store without much of any interesting conversations, apart from the odd, "This damn food is so good!" and the occasional, yet crude "So which bird would be havin' it you reckon?".

Neo had hoped she could buy a set of clothes without any words. To most, this would be a nigh impossible task, but she had a couple decades worth of practice. The man running the shop seemed nice at a glance - a bit like what people would think Santa Claus looks like. A round belly, a white beard and a jolly smile. He'd probably be quite understanding of Neo's condition, at least more than some people.

_Here's hoping he has clothes for my size, because we're not exactly similar. _Neo hoped, as they may as well have been polar opposites. Size wise, and probably personality wise as well.

"Can I help you there, little lady?" The man had a deep, bellowing voice, but it had a kind inflection to it, like a gentle-giant kind of shtick. Neo pulled some lien from her pocket, real stuff this time, as she thought it would be nice to pay this man back for his kind personality. The fact that the person she had pickpocketed it from on the way here would notice soon, and she didn't want to be caught with the exact amount on her might have also been a deciding factor. She eyed the clothes hung up around the back wall of the stall and the sets folded up underneath the counter, packed behind the glass. She spotted an outfit that suited her look so perfectly, it was like someone had predicted her coming to this exact store and made it just for her. It was a three-piece, not completely unlike her current outfit, except this one ditched the weird overcoat thing for a tight fitting pink button-up shirt, underneath a burnt brown waistcoat with a white suit jacket to top it all off. She pointed to it.

The man followed her arm up to the suit on the wall and took it into his hands. "This is the one you want? Not very _girly_ if you ask me."

_Your'e joking, right? The shirt is literally pink. Besides, I bet I'd look better in a suit than you ever would._ Neo thought to herself. She was probably telling the truth. It was almost a good thing that Neo couldn't speak sometimes, as her words could hurt more than her sword when she wanted them to. She nodded, putting on the nicest smile she could muster, which was barely any more than a scowl. Her first impression of this guy went from: 'yeah he deserves my hard-stolen cash' to 'goddamn dude get with the times'. Maybe she would keep the pickpocketed lien purely out of spite.

"Hey, who am I to judge, eh? I'm just an overweight old man in some corner of nowhere, tryna sell some clothes! What do I know right? Aaaanyway, that'll be 100 lien." The old man behind the counter's attempt at lightening the mood was actually just kind of depressing, but Neo respected the effort, and it wasn't worth being arrested because of a personal grudge, so she gave him the real lien.

"There's a cubical 'round back that I let customers change in, I'll get you a bag for those clothes too, and if they don't fit, come right back here and I'll give you a full refund."

Neo rounded the store, stepping into the fold out box that served as a changing stall. She set down her parasol and started to strip down. She hung up her old clothes on the wall hangers, saying a silent goodbye to the clothes that had been her choice garments of destruction for almost three years now. She slid into the suit pants, surprised that despite their skin tight fit, they slid on with relative ease. They were white in colour, but you could definitely see a pink tint if you looked for more than a couple seconds. The lining of the pockets was also pink, with all the exposed stitching being the same colour as the waistcoat. Neo pulled on the shirt and buttoned it up - leaving the final button beneath the collar undone. The shirt was short sleeved, but the jacket would do a good job of covering her up. She tightened the waistcoat over her shirt, making sure that her cleavage was only _just _showing, but still showing off enough to look just as irresistible as the ice cream she was named after. After all, good looks and a sprinkle of seduction could get you most places money couldn't, and vice versa. She put on the suit jacket and overturned the cuffs, revealing a pink inner lining. _I swear, this suit was made for me. _She left the jacket unbuttoned and slid on her black leather gloves, covering up the rest of her slender arms. The gloves were mainly to leave no fingerprints, but as her crimes moved away from petty thefts and murders, she had less and less need for not leaving fingerprints, as usually anything she touched was coming with her. Still, she liked the style, so she kept the gloves. The outfit was great, and it really suited Neo's style, but it seemed to be missing something _vital._ She put her beads back on underneath her neck. She had stolen them in her first robbery, and had gotten attached to them. They were like her good luck charm. She strolled back out front, remembering she had to make a last purchase. She picked up a pair of fuchsia-tinted white trainers, bidding goodbye to her almost-knee-high boots for a more favorable kind of combat footwear. They were laceless, and had considerable padding on the bottom at first glance, giving Neo that extra inch in height that she would want, and also being comfy while she murdered countless people and Grimm. Another thing also caught her eye as she took the trainers, a singular white metal broach, depicting a tri-spiked throwing star inside of a golden ring, gleaming in the sunlight. She climbed over the counter and took it down from the shelf on the wall, careful not to disturb anything on her way up there. She retrieved the item and pinned it to her waistcoat, just between her collar and her left breast. She returned to the back cubical and sat down on the floor, trying on her new trainers. She wouldn't have to pay for these thankfully, as to any onlookers her body never left the cubical, and nothing unusual happened, like a small girl climbing over a counter and stealing some trainers. Illusions were a wonderful thing. Neo was just glad that she wasn't like Emerald, who could only affect one person at a time. _It has it's uses, albeit only in specific situations._ She considered. At any rate, Neo was all freshened up and she had a new look to support her new goal. She left her old outfit sat hung up on the wall and grabbed her parasol. As she swung it under her arm she wondered if she could find one of those back harnesses everyone seemed so fond of, that let them put their weapons on their backs, as the name implied. Just as she finished her train of thought, she heard something peculiar. It sounded like someone was calling her name. She followed the voice towards an alley that turned round a corner house and ventured into darkness.

_Dark alleys. My favorite. _Neo paced down the gradually dimming path until a voice beckoned her from the darkness. It was deep, but unmistakably female.

"So you're the newcomer that we heard about. The one that can't talk. Well don't worry, _Neo._ We'll do all the talking for you."

Neo narrowed her eyes down the path ahead of her and made out the faint outlines of three individuals, two with weapons by their sides and the one in the centre with their weapon drawn. There might have been more behind them, but Neo would rather think optimistically and believe that this was a fight she could win. She grabbed the handle of her parasol and got ready to pull the blade out.

"You see, we heard about the girl that came from Beacon, a combat master and a mute, who looked strangely like Neapolitan ice cream. Well, I couldn't help but realise that I had encountered someone before that met all of that criteria - minus the bit 'bout Beacon. I just had to confirm my suspicions."

Neo tightened the grip on her weapon and thought back to all the women she had written off, stolen from or otherwise betrayed. There was hundreds, too many to sift through in a few seconds. She would have to wait and see which back-stabbing would be coming round to stab _her_ in the back this time.

"I believe..." The two figures at the woman's sides drew their weapons, one resting in one hand, the other wielding a two handed weapon, likely an old timey broadsword or something of the like. Oh how wrong Neo was. "... we have unfinished business. _Neopolitan._"

* * *

**In case you were wondering, there's no point in trying to search for the person at the end of the chapter because it's just gonna be someone straight out of my head, so no, you haven't missed some Neo lore.**

**Any reviews greatly appreciated, and I'm blown away by the amount of attention this story has been getting. For my first piece of writing, I expected about 20 views, if any, and now I'm sitting pretty at just over 150! The support has been great, and I just wanna thank you for spending your time to read this steadily growing dumpster fire.**


	5. Old Acquaintances, New Mysteries

**I bet you thought this story was dead in the water, eh? Well, you can't get rid of me that easy. I couldn't find the time to write during the holidays as I was doing other things - to say the least. I could write a list, but I doubt anyone cares. So here you are, it might not be as good as the last few were, but I'm getting back into the writing flow now, so expect more chapters, coming more regularly.**

* * *

Neo edged the blade out from inside her parasol, careful to not give away too much of what she was doing. She had to be careful here. Fighting Grimm was easy, you always knew the extent of your opponents power, depending on the species of Grimm and the size, but when it came to fighting another person, well, that was a different story entirely. With the RWBY girls she at least knew roughly what she was dealing with, as she had seen them fight prior to their first encounter, and she could base their skill off of the rest of the students in their year, but she didn't even know _who_ this was, nevermind how they fought. The wind picked up around them, rustling the leaves in the bushes that were plastering the sides of the alleyway. The sun set further with the wind, giving way to a red and pink sunset, ans also lowering itself down into the correct position to illuminate the alleyway in which the fighters were standing. It cast a long shadow from Neo's feet, doubling her height as it leant away from her, leading to the feet of the woman in front of her. Now she was exposed by the light, she was wearing a grin from ear to ear, as if she had spent a great deal of effort timing this whole fighting-in-the-sunset deal. Her hair fell short, just below her ears, and it was of brown colour, almost black, with very noticeable bright blonde highlights tucked away on one side of her head. Neo couldn't say it looked incredible, but it definitely wasn't the worst hairstyle she had seen around here today. The woman's face wore a long, thin scar over the most part of it, starting just below her right eye, tracing its way over the bridge of her nose and coming to an end just slightly after her hairline, stopping her hair from growing there and giving her a fairly large gap in her fringe. The scar went diagonally from its starting point, only narrowly missing her right eye and just barely catching the edge of her left eyebrow. Neo remembered almost immediately who the woman was, as Neo had left that scar. It had happened in a brawl between her and the White Fang - before she had started working with them - when they had intruded on her dust robbery, wanting to take it all for themselves. Neo, not being one for words, had opted to kill first and write questions later. It was a one on four, not the worst odds Neo had ever had, but it was getting there. This woman was the first to go down. Neo thought she had died, but evidently not. It was a swift strike that had brought her to her knees, Neo had interrupted her while she was mid-swing and sliced upwards, over her arm and across her face, too fast for her to focus her aura across her whole body at once. If Neo was correct, there should be a scar running the length of her bicep that lined up with the scar on her face. That blow would've killed any normal person, but clearly, this was no normal person. Not only had she not died, but she wasn't wearing the White Fang mask or uniform, signalling that after that fight, she was either presumed dead by the White Fang, or she left shortly thereafter. It had only been just over six months since this incident and it would've taken someone - even with White Fang training - a while to amass their own gang. Unless, of course, this wasn't _her_ gang. She wore a black and purple corset, tightened around her midsection, trailing a knee-length deep purple skirt, looking like she had come straight from an old age ball, with a pinch of extra pizzazz. Her arms were bare, a choice that had pros and cons in the fighting scene. She wore high heels into battle, an odd choice, but that Schnee girl seemed to manage just fine. They were an almost black colour, but slightly tinted with purple, really playing into her colour scheme. The funny thing was, despite the history, Neo had no idea how the woman knew her name, because she sure as hell didn't know her's.

"I bet you're thinking about just who exactly I am, in that little mute head of yours. Wondering how exactly I survived that _killing _blow you landed on me. Indigo's the name. You've never heard it before eh? Well it's gonna be the one in your mind when you're bleeding out on the cobbles. And I guess you'll never know how I lived. Oh well. _What a tragedy._"

The two figures at Indigo's sides drew their weapons, now revealing them to be guns akin to the ones used by the Atlesian Knight-200s. If Neo had to take a guess, they had reversed engineered one and produced their own, or they had just flat out stolen and modified them with a fresh coat of paint and a mag-loaded mechanism, as oppose to the dust-fire method the real things used. Either way, the guns were aimed straight at her and about a second away from firing. Her sword wouldn't do much against bullets fired at the speed of sound. Neo was fast, but not mach-1 fast. She fully sheathed her blade and gripped her parasol by the base, drew it out from under her arm and opened it in one smooth motion as soon as the first bullet was fired from the first gun. The parasol simply shrugged off the projectiles, and due in part to Neo's small frame, it covered her head to toe. She edged ever closer and closer to the attackers and once she was about three metres away from Indigo, she heard the distinct sound of a weapon grinding against a metal sheathe, ready to fight.. Neo drew her blade out of the handle, careful to keep her parasol in the way of the constant bombardment. _Do these things ever run out of bullets?_ Neo shuffled that thought away until after she was done here. She had never been one for firearms anyway. In a twist of fate, the bullets stopped. _Oh. I guess they do run out of bullets._ She pressed the button on the shaft of her parasol, collapsing the canopy and revealing a purple tinted spearhead plunging straight for her head. She strafed swiftly to the right and narrowly dodged the strike. Neo had realised that her brand of dance-fighting was far more efficient (and effective) than the rest of the techniques she had seen in her time. Dodging instead of blocking forced the opponent to use up more energy by following through with the hit, instead of stopping dead in their tracks. Hitting a hard surface with the force some people put behind their punches would hurt almost unbearably, but any average Joe can focus their aura enough to ignore a small amount of pain like that, at least compared to the other things Neo would do to them.

Neo moved as if she was anticipating the moves before they came, all the while keeping a careful eye on the other two assailants, who had ditched their guns in favour of a more reliable dagger. They lunged towards her, clearly with no proper intent or training, and as one dagger came close to her side, she brought her free left hand up and pulled the man through with the momentum of his attack, causing him to panic and stumble, catching Neo's thigh on the way down to the ground. She had already focused her aura and was relatively unphased by the attack, but it reminded Neo of an important fact; untrained fighters are unpredictable, they lack form and therefore are more likely to perform acts that are strange and unorthodox, but would catch a trained fighter off guard. She made a mental note to keep a watchful eye on the other woman. In one swift motion she covered her back with the canopy of her parasol and turned around, kicking the poor man in his nose while he was down. She kicked his dagger up into the air, collapsed her parasol and jumped a fair few feet into the air, spinning round and kicking the blade out of the air and square into the other woman's forehead, before she could even get a hit in. _Unpredictable, but also untrained. She never stood a chance. _Her eyes fell dead, as Neo had kicked with such force that a person untrained in aura such as the woman in question couldn't possibly have deflected the dagger. Blood ran through the natural runners in the woman's face, trailing down both sides of her mouth, and dripping onto the floor below her chin. Indigo turned to look at the limp corpse, still on both feet, and Neo expected her to go into some sort of rage at the sight of her fallen comrade, but what actually happened was quite the opposite.

"Imbecile" was the sole word to escape Indigo's mouth, as she reached for the blade in the poor girl's head and pulled it straight out, almost as if it didn't phase her one bit, and she threw the dagger straight back to the man on the floor, still reeling from the kick to the face, as if she expected him to do something about it. Neo was stunned as to how someone could be so dismissive of another's death, despite her being a murderer. She liked to think that if anyone was to take your life, she was one of the nicest ones to go about it. Time didn't wait for her enigma however, and the fighting continued. Indigo lunged at Neo, catching her off guard and cleaving her suit jacket and tearing it straight through, leaving a gash in Neo's side and letting the coat hang lose in the wind. She shrugged off the jacket, leaving her arms and wound bare in the air. She winced as the wind stung against her open wound, blood trailing over her brand new clothes. Unwilling to go much further with a gaping cut in her side, she played her trump card and shattered into shards of glass, only to reappear a second later behind Indigo, grabbing her fighting hand and yanking it behind her back, disarming her in the process. As she did so, she noticed a tattoo between Indigo's shoulder blades, depicting a spider in the centre of it's web. She held Indigo in a pin, remarkably harder than Neo imagined, as Indigo was quite a fair bit larger than her, and pressed her finger onto the tattoo, hoping she would understand what she meant. _The Spiders. It has to be. What other shady underworld organisation could have the tattoo of a spider as their mark? _

Indigo tensed up, clearly reluctant to speak, but, realising the situation she was in, she opened her mouth. She tried to keep a commanding air about her, but her words were timid. It was likely she had never been in a situation like this before. Understandable, Neo supposed. "The Spiders. The people I found after you - _almost -_ killed me. They found me there, lying on the floor in a pool of my own blood, and realised I was still kicking. They took me in and helped me back into fighting shape. Better than the Fang if I have to be honest. Oh- and don't worry about finding them - they'll find you." The man Neo had kicked in the face a couple minutes prior shouted and ran at her, dagger in hand. He had got up and remembered where his loyalties laid. Neo grabbed Indigo's spear from behind her and jabbed it straight into the man's leg. The blade pierced straight through, leaving him with a look of pure, unbridled horror plastered across his face. Upon viewing him more, he turned out to be a faunus - most likely a fox, due to his cat-like ears and red hair. He likely had a tail somewhere too, although usually faunus whose tails lack offensive uses, like a scorpion's, keep them in their clothes during battle, as they're just an extra target. The man was left to bleed out on the cobbles, the spear still hanging out of one side of his leg. Neo drew her blade up to Indigo's throat, indicating she wanted a bit more information than a few ominous sentences worded into riddles. "If you're looking for the Spiders, you're going the wrong way. You're gonna wanna head east. That's all I can say t-" Neo drew the sword closer to the woman's windpipe, drawing blood as the blade left a clean mark across Indigo's skin. "W-what I mean to say is, go to Mistral. That's all I know about them - I swear! They just hired me, I don't know where the big boss sits! Look, if you'll just let me go I ca-" Neo slit her throat. She didn't have the time, energy, nor sympathy for such a monster.

_To Mistral it is. But how? First things first, I can't be going around all bloodied. Gotta get your priorities straight, Neo._ Neo's outfit shimmered, fading from head to toe and revealing a fully repaired version of her new threads. This is illusion didn't change the damage done to the clothes, or herself for that matter, but it would hide her from suspicion until she could see a doctor. The man was still squirming about on the floor, and as Neo was about to remove the spear, he hit his head off the ground next to him. A stroke of bad luck. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. She couldn't be bothered to help him out. At least he would die in his sleep, without anymore pain than what he had just endured.

Neo strolled out into the street again as if nothing had happened, doing her best to hide the growing amount of pain in her side. She now had a long term goal in mind - Mistral. And also a short term goal - hospital. She set off the way she came, swearing she saw one on the way into the market.

* * *

**I hope it was worth the wait, but I can't guarantee it. As usual I'd be happy for any reviews about any part of anything, and I just wanna restate that I'm gonna be writing more regularly now, although I might start out a second story too, as a change of pace. But who knows! Thanks for reading my dumpster fire and check in next time when the fire will be even bigger and even smellier.**


	6. First Time Flyer

**Another longer one this time around, and this is where the story might start to veer off-canon slightly, as I kinda wanna name Neo's parasol. Only slightly though, I won't go giving Neo speech and all that, unlike _some authors._**

* * *

As she shambled down the street, Neo wondered what she was going to say when the doctor asked how she got a gash the width of an apple in her side. _As long as I have enough 'money', i won't have to say anything. I hope. _In a worst case scenario, she'd have to explain herself, and then hope to the gods that they didn't want to rat her out. Neo really didn't want a dead doctor on her hands, but if it was between her plans and the doc, it was a clear choice. Getting to this hospital really took top priority, as trying to hide her wound from the public eye was a chore. Covering it up was easy - just a simple semblance job - but masking the physical effects of an almost fatal cut, well that was a different story entirely. She had to resist putting her hand on it and try to walk normally, ignoring the burning pain in her kidney, all while making sure she wasn't losing blood. Well, too much blood anyway. Taking her attention off of the pain, she took to her surroundings. The street was the same as before, except it seemed some of the stalls and food carts had seen a better business opportunity setting up shop away from the market, so that they could catch any stragglers that were leaving the cash vacuum that was the town square. It gave the otherwise pretty bland street a new flash of colour, as the various meats and fruits illuminated the bland grey cobbles. People were rushing around the stalls, trying to spread their money around every shop they could, filling their pockets with anything that caught their eye. Children were playing around near the carts, running around and crawling under them, their laughs brightening the atmosphere like a rising sun. It was no wonder all the surrounding Grimm came straight to Beacon when the other towns were as joyous as this. Among the happy faces and cheery sounds, Neo rested her eyes upon salvation. The hospital. Neo had never wanted to enter a government owned building so much in her life. After all, anything official was never her style.

The hospital was small, more resembling a clinic than a hospital, and it looked no different than the houses lining the streets. The only thing that set it apart from the rest of the buildings was the signature red cross icon plastered onto a banner that was hanging from the upper floor windows. It looked shabby, but it did the trick. After all, why fix something that isn't broken? Neo stood outside the double doors leading into the hospital. She took a deep breath and hoped that she wouldn't run into too much difficulty regarding her forced silence. As she pushed through the doors, the smell of antiseptic filled her nostrils and forced a slight wince to form across her features. The room she found herself in was quite cozy looking, with a fireplace burning on one of the walls and brown leather sofas lining another two. It seemed the town had spared no expense in making the hospital seem like a homely place, and not the stark white boring places they seemed to be in all the bigger cities. She let her illusion fade slightly, revealing some blood, but not the whole picture, just enough so that the reception desk would see her condition but not too much to make her come running. Neo's plan worked splendidly, and the faunus woman at the desk directed her to a doctor who was free at that moment in time. Neo could tell the woman at the reception desk was a horse faunus because of the horse-like ears, but an unexpected feature was the fact she walked without shoes. Neo didn't know that faunus' could have the feet of their respective animal. Or maybe it was different for all of them. Neo often wondered what faunus animal she would be, and if it would've made her life much different. There would be plenty of time for pondering afterwards though, as she was just walking into the long awaited operating room, which sounded much more appealing to Neo than it would to anyone else. She had to commend the hospital's quick service, but it was unlikely they ever got anything worse than a broken bone around here, so there was probably an abundance of free doctors. As she walked through the threshold, Neo's vision began to blur. It seemed that walking around with a gaping hole in your side doesn't exactly do wonders for your health. She put her hand on the table for support, but the last thing she saw before passing out was her parasol drop from her other hand and hit off the floor.

When Neo came to, she was laid out on a hospital bed in what looked like a re-purposed bedroom. She guessed the hospital must have been another simple house, hence the shoddy sign outside, and it was just converted into a hospital when the need for one arose. There was another fire burning in the corner of the room, with a picture of the building sat on the mantelpiece. _They sure like their fireplaces 'round here don't they. _The picture depicted the hospital on opening day, and all the doctors and nurses were stood was a happy sight, with all the parties involved sporting a wide smile. Neo was still in her clothes, but her jacket and waistcoat were hung over the bottom of the bed and there was a considerable hole in her shirt where she had been cut. In truth, she didn't have to wear clothes in the first place, as she could keep illusions of clothes up for almost a month at a time without impacting her fighting ability at all, and all she needed to do to get back up to full strength was have a good nights sleep. However, the illusion of clothes didn't stop the cold getting to her. It seemed her jacket and waistcoat had been sewn up, even using the correct colour thread. Neo thought she should thank the workers here for showing such hospitality, but then realised that her not stealing from them was thanks enough. Keeping up an illusion as simple as a tiny piece of scrap cloth was child's play, so the cut in her shirt didn't matter. To bring her out of her thoughts, a doctor walked in and sat on the end of her bed. There was plenty of spare space, as Neo only took up just over half of it. She turned her head to look at him, and Neo had to say, he was considerably handsome. He had a stubble beard that stretched the length of his face, going from ear to ear. He was a brunette with a mundane haircut, but a sharp jawline and intense eyes. Despite looking manly and intimidating, he had a friendly air about him, something that made him seem nice that Neo couldn't quite put her finger on. When he spoke, his voice was deep and smooth, almost sounding as if it was resonating through the objects around her.

"Ah, so you're finally awake. The mystery girl." He looked as if he was awaiting a response, but then remembered who he was talking to. "I told the local authorities that there was a woman I'd never seen before with a gash the size of a spearhead in her side, and that she looked like ice cream. The man at the gate told me about your condition, and the fact that you came from Beacon Academy. I just wanna say, I'm sorry. We've all had our fair share of Grimm invasions, but what happened at Beacon was devastating. No one should have to go through that sort of horror." He seemed to have a genuine tone of sorrow in his voice, but all Neo could think about was the irony of a man trying to console the person who had been a major part in starting the invasion. If Neo was an absolute idiot, and she had the ability to, she would have laughed. "Because you're a mute, I won't bother asking you about where you got the cut, and I also won't ask you about why you're wearing the pin that has mysteriously gone missing from Gray's shop. However, I am gonna ask that you get out of this town fast. It's against town law to harbor a criminal, and we both know that you fit the bill perfectly. I'm not going to turn you in, but I'm not gonna help you either. As a Beacon survivor, you deserve at least some sympathy, so all I'm going to tell you is that there's a ship leaving for a town in Mistral. Kuchinashi, it's called. It's setting off in about three hours, and that's all you get. I don't know how you're going to get onboard, where you're gonna go afterwards, or what you're gonna do, but I believe that you've taken a noble task upon yourself here. Travelling away from home to try and find help? I believe in you. That, and also the fact that the report about you from Beacon gets here tomorrow and we both know you'll be in big trouble if you're still here when that happens." This left Neo in a state of shock. Why had this random man shown up seemingly out of nowhere and decided on a whim to help her out? There was no way on Remnant that he was helping her solely out of respect for a Beacon survivor. Despite Neo's curiosity however, it wasn't like she could ask him. As he got up and began to walk out of the door, his jacket revealed a silver nameplate pinned to his breast pocket; Cole Berrymoore. Neo made a mental note of his name, wondering if they'd ever cross paths again. That brought up another thought in her mind - how did he know she was a criminal? He should only think that she had stolen her broach, yet he seemed to be certain that she had committed a long list of crimes. Perhaps they had met before, or maybe there was more to this 'Cole' character than meets the eye.

"Good luck" were the final words he uttered before leaving the room, letting the door swing shut as he left.

Neo rested herself in the hospital bed for another couple minutes, taking in the sound of the crackling fire and the smell of a scented vanilla candle that sat on the bedside table. It was likely going to be a while before she had the time to relax like this again. Even though the humble town of Sidwold had an embarrassing name that made Neo cringe, it had a knack for nice places to relax. She wasn't sure what was better, the room she had payed for at the inn, or the hospital. After a while of taking in her senses, she sat up in her bed and drew the quilt back from her legs. She got to her feet and shuffled over to the bottom of the bed to retrieve her clothes, stretching her legs along the way and letting a gasp of air fall from her lips. She pulled on the waistcoat and buttoned it to the top, putting the jacket over it and doing up the top button. This way the jacket was kept flush against the skin, illuminating Neo's dreamy silhouette, whilst also allowing the tail of the jacket to trail behind her slightly as she walked. She opened the door and left the comfort of the hospital room, ready to use this ticket to Mistral. It was almost too perfect that she had just been given a path straight to the one place she needed to get to. There was always the possibility it was a ruse, or maybe even a trap, but that was a risk Neo was willing to take. As she walked down the corridor to the front lobby, she wondered how much the whole operation would cost. She stopped at the reception desk and fiddled around in her pocket for a while, acting like there was something actually in there, and materialised a couple 100 lien notes. The woman at reception waved the money away and pointed to a sign above the counter.

'FREE HEALTHCARE TO ALL IN LIGHT OF RECENT GRIMM ATTACKS'

Well that was certainly one way to keep everyone safe, sound and happy.

"The attacks hit hard, so we're taking extra precautions." The horse faunus explained, with a cheery tone. Neo nodded and put on a smile, before turning to leave and dropping the expression immediately. It wasn't that she disapproved, but she liked tricking people with her illusions. It made her feel mischievous. She pushed open the hospital doors with both arms, and embraced the open air. Now all she had to do was find this airship that was leaving for Kuchinashi. A town with a considerably nicer name than Sidwold, but that wasn't Neo's place to judge. She spent a moment running her eyes around the surrounding roads, before spying a road sign. Neo may as well have ran over to it, eager to get out of this town before she was allegedly going to be busted. With three hours on the clock, it seemed she had plenty of time, but Neo didn't know where to go, and on top of that, she didn't how big this place actually was. Everyone called it small and humble, but most places are small and humble when compared to Beacon. The sign told her exactly what she wanted to know; 'Sidwold Local Travel Centre'. If the 'Travel Centre' didn't include an airport, Neo didn't know what could. She set off on her way, half walking-half running, making a quick pace to get out of there, not bothering to glance at the pretty surroundings and cheerful families that were constantly finding themselves in Neo's path, to her irritation. Among the commotion, Neo froze. Her parasol. She had left the one thing she had carried with her since childhood behind in a completely unknown hospital. The last place she saw it was on the floor, right before she passed out. She turned and sprinted back in the other direction, hoping that someone would've been nice enough to keep it safe. Her unrivaled agility allowed her to weave in and out of the crowds, getting her back to the hospital in just over a minute. Neo felt like if she ran any faster, she would have left tracks of fire in her wake and time traveled. She didn't slow down when she got to the doors though, and smashed right through them, nearly knocking them off their hinges. She scanned the reception desk and the room behind it, seeing her prized parasol laying on the counter. She went and retrieved the weapon, not paying any attention to the stunned bystanders, who were all watching with mouths agape. One man - who seemed to be a huntsman - had his hand on his weapon, ready to pick a fight. _I'd hold it, pal. You wouldn't last two seconds if you drew that sword. _She picked up the parasol and embraced it against her, vowing in her head to never leave it behind again. _I should probably think of a name for you, shouldn't I? _Well at least now she had something to do on the flight. She strolled out of the doors once more, not bothering to close them behind her. This whole ordeal would only make people more suspicious of her, so it was probably best to get the hell outa dodge while she could. She picked up the pace again, this time jogging at considerable speed, towards the travel centre. Neo reached the entrance to the airport after about an hour of travelling, with her realising this town was much, much larger than she had imagined. At some point she had stopped jogging and started walking, realising that no matter how fit she might be, she's never going to be jogging at high speed for an hour. As soon as she walked through the entrance to the airport, a message came over the loudspeaker:

"The flight for Kuchinashi city of Mistral has been moved forward by an hour and a half, to 6:30pm. Please begin boarding now."

_It's only 6:30? I wonder how long I was out for. _Neo began walking, but then it hit her that she had no idea where she was going. She glanced up at the widescreen that was placed up on the wall, overlooking the vast boarding hall. In clear yellow writing; 'Mistral - Kuchinashi : Terminal 4'. A quick scan of the signs hanging from the ceiling gave her a direct route to the boarding line, and she leisurely made her way to it, not worrying about the queue. The line was quite short, but then again, it was a small airliner. It didn't matter to Neo though, because she wasn't getting into the seats. They were all likely booked up on the flight, and although she could get a fake boarding pass and all the other necessary documents, there was still going to be an extra person, so the smart move was the cargo hold. She could disguise herself as a flight attendant, but that would lead to unneeded confrontations with people she couldn't explain herself to. A big reason Neo had never been caught was the fact that she never picked a fight she couldn't win. She walked around for a moment before spotting a passport photo booth nestled against the wall. She walked in and drew the curtain closed behind her. Then it was just a simple matter of illusions to get her right where she needed to be. To everyone else viewing her, she would still be sat in the booth, deadly still, whilst she actually made her way outside of the terminal and into the airliner's cargo hold. Then all that was left to do was to shatter the illusion to glass. It might have aroused some suspicion when shards of glass fell to the floor and promptly dissipated, but Neo would be a few kilometres high in the air soon, so it's not like she would be in any trouble. The cargo hold was a relatively large area, likely meant to hold more than just luggage, but for this journey the only unusual cargo it was going to be carrying was a small woman. Neo got comfortable on top of a soft suitcase and laid down, facing the ceiling. Flights across kingdoms usually lasted about half a day, with the longest being from Vacuo to Mistral at about twenty six hours. With Vale being at the centre of all the kingdoms however, the flight time only varied by about an hour each way depending on which kingdom you were heading to. Neo was prepared for a good nap, and she also wanted to think about what to call her trusty parasol. It was a wonder that after all these years, she had never thought to name the one thing that had stuck with her for her entire life. She had owned the parasol for as long as she could remember. Once, someone had told her it might have been a family heirloom, or a parting gift from her mother, but Neo had never paid it much thought. However, she had a long flight ahead of her, and it was on her mind. It was almost a shame that the first time she had flown to a different kingdom was going to be in the cargo hold, and that she wouldn't get to see the ocean from above, but it wasn't as if she would never go cross-kingdom again. After all, she had to come back. Neo had flown all over Vale, but never once had she gone to a different kingdom, as she had found a good living in Vale and didn't want to risk losing it. However this time, revenge was her motivator, and it was doing a damn good job at getting her moving. Just as Neo got comfortable, the airliner began to rumble and the following roar of the engines overflowed her thoughts. She closed her eyes and listened to the engine as it propelled them upwards, and as they reached optimal height, the engines angled themselves backwards and began to move the airliner forward, using less power and therefore making less of a racket. The noise began to lull Neo to sleep, and after a moment of serenity, she lost consciousness.

* * *

**By the way, Kuchinashi is an actual place in Remnant, unlike Sidwold, which was just a funny typo my friend made. Also I remembered to keep the wait down this time. It's not like the first few chapters where I pumped out about three in a week, but it's better than waiting a fortnight between chapters. As usual, any reviews would be gladly accepted, whether it be criticism or praise. I don't usually like to bring up how many views I get because it feels like bragging, but this story just reached 500 views and that's a pretty big milestone fro my first story, so thank you all for giving me a reason to keep writing. I'm trying to fall into a weekly writing routine, with a new chapter every Monday, but I've already shown I'm not the most reliable person when it comes to schedules.**


	7. Déjà Vu

**Shorter one this time round, buuuuuuut I also managed to keep it on schedule, so I'm hoping that'll make up for it.**

* * *

_Hmmm... what sounds cool enough? Regalia? No, no. Too prim and proper, not my style. Ah well. It'll come to me eventually. _The prospect of Neo naming her life-long companion, her parasol, was completely new to her. She had never once thought that she should name her weapon, despite it being the one thing that had never left her side, if only for the fact that it couldn't physically leave. The parasol was many things; a sword, a shield, a parachute, a friend when times were rough, but it was barely ever used as a parasol, and it just felt wrong to keep calling it that. In fact, Neo used it more as an umbrella than a parasol, because despite most parasols not being waterproof, the waterproof ability came with the incredibly strong material that allowed the parasol to block seemingly anything that could be thrown at it. She didn't know what it was made out of, or where its limit was, but so far the parasol had accumulated nothing more than a few scratches from even the strongest attacks that she had encountered through her escapades. As much as she now wanted to name it, she couldn't rush it. Even though no one else would know its name, it didn't feel right to keep changing it once she had chosen a fitting one. The suitcases opposite Neo fell over following a rumble from the ship's engines, and it brought her right out of her train of thought, despite that train going nowhere. She had woken up an hour or two ago, and sat up against the wall behind where she had slept. She had no way to check the time, so she just had to hope that she was close to Mistral and that she didn't have to wait for eight hours just pacing around the cargo hold waiting to hear any sign of landing. In truth, she didn't exactly know what she was going to do when the airliner touched down, but she was probably just going to pull another simple illusion and walk away. It might have been good _functionally_, but Neo's get-out-of-jail-free-card semblance was boring to use. For once she wanted a challenge, something that couldn't be solved by just disappearing and reappearing in a different place, but the sad truth was that Neo was kind of overpowered. In the relatively random chance pool of semblances, she must have come out on top, or close to it, with her ability to change her own looks to anything she wanted, someone else's looks to anything she wanted, some_thing_'s looks to anything she wanted, and then the cherry on top was that she could effectively teleport by just shattering into glass and showing up somewhere else! It wasn't actually teleportation, Neo still had to physically move there, but to someone looking outside-in, they would be none the wiser.

"Its a load of shit this is, mate", Neo heard a voice behind the door leading into the cargo hold.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just open the damn door and get it done." There was two voices, the first was clearly the younger of the two, and it had a whiny undertone to it. The second might have been a full decade older by the sounds of it, and also sounded like he'd been on the job for a few years at least, judging by his attitude. Neo realised they were coming in not a second too early, and managed to hide herself behind some baggage just as the door swung open and knocked a suitcase over.

"I don't have to reimburse any of the 'accidental' damages right?"

"All he said we had to do was get in here, check for some stowaway, and get back to the cockpit ASAP. We don't have to do fuck all else, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't smash up our customer's belongings!"

"Jeez, aight boss, no need to get pissy."

Neo heard them start walking at this point, and she hoped to the gods that they would be like the typical employee, and never _actually_ do their job properly. Unluckily for Neo, however, one of them didn't seem to fit the bill. The younger of the two walked right up to the corner Neo was nestled in, and rested his hand on the suitcases there. He opened his mouth to speak, and Neo could only hope the next words weren't 'got one'.

"We're right over Mistral anyway, if he wanted to check for stowaways, he should've done that before takeoff. What're we gonna do if we find someone? Give em' a slap on the arse and drag em' all the way to the cockpit, through all the satisfied customers?"

Following Neo's incredible recent luck, the engines rumbled again, and knocked the suitcases she was hiding behind right on to the floor. As soon as the guard's face was in view, she bashed him with the handle of her parasol, which sadly still didn't have a name. He fell straight to the floor and cried out to his friend, who had already raised his gun. Neo drew her sword and started to run towards him. He was holding a pistol, and would likely be an easy target if Neo could get close. As he fired his first shot, Neo did something that surprised even herself. She misjudged her opponent and dodged a moment too soon, right into the path of his bullet. In a last ditch effort to save herself, Neo raised her blade in front of her face. The edge of the bullet collided with the edge of the blade, sending it slightly off course, grazing Neo's hair, but missing her face. _That would be where the slow motion kicked in_. Her luck still hadn't got any better however, as the runaway bullet had struck the 'OPEN BAY DOOR' button on the other side of the hold. Both Neo and the guard lowered their weapons and stared at the slowly opening bay doors. The guard that was still on his feet grabbed the handle next to the door and held on, and the guard that Neo had knocked over grabbed onto the side of the wall and clung on for dear life. A suitcase slid towards Neo, pulled by the wind from the now open bay door. It knocked her clean off her feet, and her lifeline straight from her hand. She still had the blade, but the parachute part of the wonder-parasol was about to fall straight down to the ground below. Neo hadn't let the parasol go before, and she wasn't going to start now. She got to her feet and threw herself out of the plane just after the parasol, grabbing it by the handle just as she started free falling. She struggled to insert the handle back into the rest of the parasol, but after a second of fumbling she managed to get it in and flick the switch on the parasol's shaft, expanding the canopy and slowing Neo's descent. She had a lovely view of the sunrise, indicating that the twelve-ish hour long flight had come to a close and that she was right over Kuchinashi, well that's what she had hoped anyway, as she didn't want to rely on the wind to carry her to her destination. She wasn't out of the woods yet however, as there was still suitcases falling from the plane. Most fell out of the way of Neo, but she still had to try and air-swim out of the way of a couple bags.

Falling from the sky, parasol in hand, Neo got a major sense of deja vu. It seemed she couldn't get on a flying vehicle recently without having to make an emergency exit via the open air. At least she got her wish of wanting to see Remnant from the skies. The only differences this time around from last time were the fact that she was probably three times as high this time, and no one had died. _Damn. Why'd I have to go and remember that?_ Roman's death still gnawed at Neo's conscious ever so slightly, giving the impression that she had moved on, but it had never actually left. He was the entire reason Neo was even in the sky again, the reason she was floating kilometres over Mistral, the reason she had gone through Sidwold, gotten her new threads, and even considered flying out from Vale for the first time in her life. She owed more than she realised to that man. He had done more for Neo in death than anyone else had in life. She wondered what those other two were up to. Ruby and Cinder. Neo had more of a vendetta against Ruby, but she had never liked Cinder from the start, the way she just showed up one day and started to boss everyone around, including Neo. She usually respected the chain of command, but Cinder never sat well with her, from the way she talked to the way she was way too cocky. There was no use welling up with anger whilst this high in the sky, however, and her time was probably better spent looking out for a place to land. So she did just that, and tried to find a good place to set down without causing too much of a commotion. _Like I have a choice where I land anyway._

* * *

**As usual, any reviews, bad or good, and thanks for reading.**


	8. Trial by Fire

**I'm back, at long last, and to make up for the more than double length wait, here's a more than double length chapter! I wrote this over a few days, instead of the way I usually do it, which is cramming it all into a couple hours. That means I definitely put more effort into this one, but it also means there _might _be a continuity error in there. Maybe. Hopefully not. I've been through it, my friend has been through it, but I'm still not 100% sure, so sorry in advance if I messed something up. **

**Also, SPOILERS, but this is the last chapter.**

* * *

As she gracefully floated down from the skies, Neo wondered about her parasol. Where it had come from, how had it been made, and just how it managed to be so damn strong yet also be able to let her fall like she was wearing a parachute. The fact that she couldn't remember where it had come from or when she had gotten hold of it had always gnawed at her mind, making her wonder if it really had been some sort of family heirloom. Most people probably didn't get too attached to their weapons, but this parasol had been the only thing that had stuck around throughout her life. Everything else was either dead, gone, or both. Neo thought about this for as long as she was in the air, despite not getting anywhere other than speculating about who her parents were. Perhaps one day she would find out who they were, but the chances of them still being alive were slim and the chances they'd ever want to see her were slimmer. There was most likely a reason she was abandoned at birth, and it probably wasn't a loving one. Learning from past mistakes, Neo braced herself for the landing. She had kept a subconscious eye on Kuchinashi and knew roughly which direction to walk. It was a fairly large town, but she had never been top of the metaphorical class for orienteering. The trek east was really no different than the one in Vale, except less of the burning cities and invading Grimm. Neo had always been told that Anima held some of the greatest views in all of Remnant, due to the steep mountain ranges and the city itself. Built between two mountains, the city of Mistral was a marvel of technology just as it was beautiful to see, sporting a multi-level city design with a large moving platform in the centre, used to ferry all the large cargo to the upper levels. There were stairs of course, but no one wanted to haul half the city's cargo from the lower levels up through dozens of flights of stairs. Kuchinashi wasn't too far away from the city of Mistral, now Neo thought about it. Although she had never been out of Vale, every respectable human being – and faunus – knew the locations of the capitals. There was only four, after all. In stark comparison to the first town Neo encountered, the lead up was rather extraordinary. The path she had stumbled across was well built and paved in bricks that were shaped into intricate patterns, there was lampposts lining the path and there was no sign of any damage at all, barring the odd cracked brick in the paving, but that was to be expected. With the sun setting and the shattered moon cresting on the opposite horizon, the lights flickered on, illuminating a path through the trees leading to the enormous gates that separated the wild from civilisation. For the lights to have flickered on by themselves was a marvel of technology in and of itself, but Neo imagined that wasn't all that this foreign land had to offer. _After all, you can't have light without dark. And the dark's what I'm here for. _

The doors into Kuchinashi were roughly twice the size of the ones at Sidwold. Perhaps that was half Neo's small stature talking, but there was no doubt in the fact that the doors nearly stretched to above the treeline. They had curved tops, like a gate into an old expensive manor house, and the were visibly reinforced by iron strips and metal spikes lining these strips, in keeping with the rustic themed look for the whole place. There were also distinct dents and pieces of wood torn away from the gates, likely by Grimm who got a bit too up close and personal with the town's defences. For a town that looked smaller than most, it sure had the look and feel of an advanced trade city. Sadly though, it wasn't the clean and technologically advanced parts of Kuchinashi Neo was here to see, it was quite the opposite. The doors were just closing as she arrived, due to the quickly setting sun, so she dashed inside, careful not to let her jacket get caught in the closing doors. What sat before her was breath-taking. The sunset worked to illuminate the town in a reddish-gold light, glinting off the windows in the town's buildings and lighting the paved roads and making them look as if they were glowing like melted gold. The town itself was full of rustic looking old era buildings with exposed wooden beams and plaster coatings on the exterior of the buildings. It looked like something straight out of a painting, and with Mistral being the hub for all of Remnant's greatest artists, it was likely it _was_ straight out of a painting. It almost looked fictional in this setting, with the light perfectly reflecting from all the surfaces and the lampposts and house lights slowly flickering on as the seconds passed by; it was almost too good to be true. The doors slammed shut behind her and brought her out of her trance, and by the time she had looked back the sun had moved out of position and the golden glow was replaced by the dim light of the streetlamps and the glimmer of the house windows. The city streets were bustling with people, faunus and human alike, and they all seemed to be going somewhere, despite the sun setting just a few minutes ago. The phrase "the city never sleeps" had never seemed so accurate throughout all of Neo's life. She had to keep reminding herself not to get too entranced by the hustle and bustle of the Mistral kingdom life, and all the tempting things at the heart of the 'Kingdom of Culture', as she had more _underground _matters to attend to. Keeping that thought clear at the forefront of her mind, she ventured through the milling crowd and further into the heart of the city, not really knowing what she was looking for. One thing was clear though, it was getting late, and although a night-time adventure through the shady districts of some far away new land sounded very interesting, it most likely wouldn't end well. She knew she could most likely defend herself, but if she wanted information, keeping civil was the least she could do. So that put inn-finding at the top of her to do list once again. She pushed on through the crowd keeping a keen eye out for somewhere to stay and sleep, as a city this advanced and this large surely had to have at least half a dozen places to stay, especially near the city's entrance. The streets were once again lined with trees and bushes, split up by the occasional bench, occupied by loving couples or happy families. It looked like something out of a film, or something described in a book, the way there was no crime or despair, and everyone was happy and content. Across the road ahead of her Neo finally spotted the familiar sight of an inn. It looked distinctly different to any other places to stay in Vale, but it was unmistakably an inn. Mainly because of the sign on the door. It bore the same look of all the houses around it and had a lantern hanging from the sign above the door, illuminating the doorway into the building. She walked towards the door, taking in even more of the picturesque surroundings, before stopping a couple steps away from the door. A faint scream echoed from beside the inn, and even though she didn't want to get _too _involved, it wouldn't hurt to just check it out. Neo turned towards the sound and picked up the pace. She wasn't a hero by any standards, and she sure as hell wasn't going to be saving anyone that was in trouble, but she just wanted some extra action to take her mind of the fact that she had just airdropped into a completely unknown land with only the word of some random doctor to go off. To the right of the inn was a dimly lit alley, lacking the advanced lighting system the rest of the city seemed to use. It was almost like it was asking to be a criminal breeding ground. Neo started off down the path, listening for any other sounds that might give away some sort of location, but there was nothing. Even if Neo had the intention of saving someone, she was too late by now anyway. The alleyway opened into a small cul-de-sac, harbouring a singular building resembling the inn behind her, except slightly smaller, and most definitely shadier. Then she heard the screaming again, however this time she realised it was someone from inside the building laughing and cheering, rather than screaming in pain. _So much for some action._

She gave the building a quick scan from the outside and realised that it had to be some sort of criminal enterprise building, as anyone with at least 3 brain cells would realise that building a pub this far out of sight would never bring any good business. Light was shining out from the windows and illuminating the area outside, making the whole scene look like a Van Gogh painting. It was like this small pub in a back alley of one of the largest towns in Mistral was in a completely different world. A completely different _criminal _world. Which was coincidentally Neo's exact favourite type of world. She took in the exquisite glow of the pub for another moment, gave a quick scan around for a sign, and after not seeing one, took a step inside. It looked incredibly jolly for a lowlife's pub; there was a cliché piano playing in the corner - that was bound to stop as soon as she walked any further forward – there was a bar stretching the length of the left hand wall, a vintage jukebox whose music was currently being replaced by the piano, and a nice little plant in the far corner. There were shelves filled with odds and ends ranging from a hopefully deactivated rifle to a de-spined cactus, which was sitting right next to another cactus, which still had its spines. There were trinkets and the like scattered about the various other bare countertops, covering every flat surface, bar the tables, in some manner of collectibles. Just as predicted, Neo took one more step into the room and the piano player stopped abruptly and like clockwork, every head in the room turned to stare. It was quite a sight. In a room filled with buff men and scary women, all wearing dark colours and sporting deadly weapons like they were themed watches, there stood a very bright, very feminine, very _tiny _woman, with half pink hair and an ice cream-themed getup. They all stared for about five seconds before turning back to their drinks and their card games, and the piano resumed playing. She strolled alongside the bar, quite unsure about what she was looking for. She realised that a pub might not have been the best place for a mute to look for information, but her eyes had never failed her before. In fact, they were probably the third most useful thing she owned, behind her parasol and her semblance, in that order. She surveyed the room, looking for anything that could give her any sort of idea as to what she was looking for. Then she saw it. Across the room sat a man. A scarily familiar man. Brunette, sharp jawline and intense eyes. _I knew I'd be seeing him again. _The man who put Neo here. If it wasn't for Cole Berrymoore, she would still be sat in the most unflatteringly named town in all of existence. And here he was. Cole Berrymoore, wearing a tight fit black t-shirt instead of the doctor's jacket, except this t-shirt revealed something most intriguing. A black spider tattoo on his right bicep, quite far up so that almost the entire top half was underneath his sleeve, but it was definitely a spider. The same tattoo of a spider that Indigo had, the tattoo depicting _The_ Spiders, the entire reason for Neo being here in the first place. He noticed her from across the room and beckoned her over. She took a few cautious steps forward, but after realising that his weapon was out on the table, she walked over and sat opposite him, awaiting some sort of explanation.

"Well, I guess the secret's out then, ain't it?" he started, "and I guess that you're gonna be wanting some kind of explanation, huh? Well as you can see, I'm a Spider. We got word of someone looking for us, and we realised that you wanted business, not a fight. We sent Indigo to go and get you, she volunteered, but clearly that wasn't out of the kindness of her heart. She won't be dead. I can guarantee you. Do you know what her semblance is?"

Neo shook her head.

"Do you wanna know?"

Neo nodded, warily, but she nodded, nonetheless.

"She's the real life equivalent of a vampire. She takes aura, sucks it out of you, and uses it to restore her own. It's what saved her at your first encounter, and unless you made sure everyone was dead, it's what saved her at your second encounter, too." Neo thought back to the battle, she thought of how Indigo just seemed mildly inconvenienced when her associate had died, and most of all, how she had left one of them alive and unconscious on the floor. "Now you may be thinking, 'well what if she's unconscious, or near death?' Well in that case her semblance acts as a failsafe that involuntarily absorbs any aura in the vicinity, which is why she's an _especially _dangerous person to fight. And that's also why you interested me so much. Because you survived her. _Twice._"

Although she had been nicked a couple times during their fight, Indigo hadn't seemed like someone of too much bother to Neo. Clearly, however, if someone didn't know about her semblance she could be – if nothing else – a rather dangerous surprise. Neo's interest had peaked. Sadly, though, conversations were never easy. She just had to try and make do with facial expressions, hand signals and funny looks. And starting off with the funny looks, Neo furrowed her brow and motioned towards her bicep, trying to get more on the Spiders. Cole looked at her and then back at his arm, the _wrong_ arm. Neo switched her gestures round so she was pointing to her left arm instead of her right, making it his right. _Some people are just idiots. Honestly. _His face relaxed, indicating that he finally realised what she was on about.

He spoke in a hushed tone, quieter than usual, despite the fact that everyone in here could see the tattoo and most definitely knew what it meant. "Right, right. Let's get back on track. We Spiders noticed you were on the hunt, and as soon as we realised you wanted someone found, we came looking for you. Ignoring Indigo, I was sent to guide you here, so guide I did. As you can tell, this isn't 'home base' as you may call it. Its merely an extension of the web. We would've taken you straight there, but as you can tell, some things needed… explaining. Well, now that's out of the way," Cole slid a card across the table, a modified playing card, it seemed. On one side there was an intricate black and white pattern depicting a spider in its web, with patterns growing out towards the edges. On the other, there was a simple black border, and an address in the middle. No, not an address. Directions. "here are the directions to the centre," Cole continued, "the centre of our little web. Just follow the trail." And with that, he stood up and took a step away from the table, before turning back and dropping a couple ten lien notes alongside a piece of paper. Neo turned it over to reveal 'for my drinks' scrawled across it in messy blue ink. With almost comically perfect timing, a waitress tapped Neo on the shoulder and asked for payment for the round of drinks her "boyfriend" had bought. One of the many downsides to being a mute was the inability to correct people. It seemed as though it was always that aspect that annoyed her most. She payed the bill and got out of the pub before she had to put up any more money, even though it wasn't hers. Then again, it was never her money she used to buy things. There was one thing left to do, follow the trail.

The directions on the back of the card were… less than satisfactory. There were only four directions, and none of them actually told Neo explicitly where to go. They were very cryptic, which seemed to be a running theme with shady organisations. They could never just be to the point – there was always some degree of pansying about when it came to sophisticated crime. They had already said that they _wanted_ her business, so why not just show her the way? Well, one thing was for sure, moaning about it to herself was getting her nowhere fast. The first direction, or rather, riddle.

The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout,

A good old-fashioned nursery rhyme, one of Neo's favourites. Not that anybody ever read them to her, sadly. Thinking that there couldn't possibly be any other passages out of this little separate world, she took the same alley out as she had in, yet this time a lot slower. She scanned every inch of every surface, looking for any sign of a toddler's nursery rhyme. If she hadn't already gone on a multi-continental wild goose chase that spanned across oceans, she usually would've dismissed this as weirdos trying to play a trick on her, but clearly these guys meant serious business. Well, as serious as you could get when you were handing out nursery rhymes. She reached the end of the alleyway and looked back and forth, trying to look for any clue as to what she was looking for. Upon finding nothing at all, she took a couple steps further out of the passage and let out a deep sigh. Then she saw exactly what she was looking for; the sign on the inn, 'The Waterspout'. A damn convenient name for an inn in the same city as the Spider's hideout. Unless, of course, they had a hand in the businesses in Kuchinashi. But that was only the first half of the first line of the first step of this journey to the centre of the Spider's web. Now Neo had to figure out what was meant by "_up_ the water spout." She had always hated puzzles. Ever since she was a little girl, there had always been people who thought that they were some sort of higher authority if they spoke in riddles. Most of those people were now dead, and Neo would be lying she said she hadn't killed at least a _couple_ of those people. The Waterspout was her best bet, and so in she went, crossing into a scene almost the exact opposite of the pub down the alley. It wasn't _empty _per se, rather it seemed that all the business went to the shadier joint down the back alley, and for good reason by the looks of it. The ground floor of the inn resembled the first place Neo had stayed, except much emptier, with only a couple tables filled in a room with about a dozen. There was a bartender who was absent mindedly cleaning the same glass he'd probably been cleaning for the last hour, and due to lack of business, probably wouldn't need to clean again for a while. In the corner stood a man scrolling through his Scroll, and the place was lacking the ambient music that the pub had. The people in there were probably the only non-criminals around, and that just went to show how corrupt some places could get. Following the loose instructions she could decipher from the riddle, she walked cautiously up the stairs towards the second floor. The whole place gave off a vibe that within seconds the place could be emptied and ready to ambush someone, like the sole reason for it being here was to draw people away from the true criminal hangout. The steps creaked underneath Neo's weight, making her wonder what would happen if someone a bit on the heavier side wanted a room. As she reached the top of the stairs, she spotted another table in the corner of the balcony overlooking the bar downstairs. A man sat there, back turned towards her. The rest of the rhyme was still to go, but something about this man made it seem to Neo that he was important. She stepped closer, for once being grateful for the fact she weighed about half the average huntress, as the floorboards underneath her would have most definitely made a considerable amount of noise if the stairs were any indication of things to come. The man wore a grey sleeveless jacket with a deep purple undershirt, but there was something… off about him. As she got closer, she realised what it was. He was dead. There was a hole in the back of his jacket, and a trail of fresh red blood was spilling out and down the back of his jacket. _Looks like I spoke too soon, there will be action. _Just as the thought crossed her mind, the door to the room on her left flew off its hinges and slammed into Neo's side, knocking her straight over the balcony and into midair. She only had a split second to realise what was going on, and she managed to right herself enough to tuck into a roll when she hit the ground, avoiding any major damage. She had been taken off guard, and therefore her aura hadn't protected her from the flying hardwood door. It had smashed into her side and undoubtedly broken a rib or two, but she could cover that up with aura for the length of the fight. What she couldn't cover up was the fact that it had done a number on the cut she had just stitched up. The stitches had completely burst and there was blood trickling slowly from her freshly opened wound. The room around her was now empty and the only thing that stood out was the door that had fallen along with her and smashed through one of the tables on the ground floor. She looked upwards, only to see exactly who she'd just been warned about. Good ol' Indigo, everybody's favourite aura-sucking vampire woman, clad in the same clothes as before, neglecting even to wash the blood off from their last encounter. Neo expected some sort of pre-fight monologue like before, but instead Indigo jumped from the balcony and landed right on top of Neo, and as she shattered into shards, she made a mental note to use this method of ambush in the future. She repositioned herself behind Indigo, but as she went for a hit, Indigo moved out of the way and caught her eye as she dodged, as if to say, "not this time." She hit Neo in the square of her back, knocking her straight over. Realising her advantage, Indigo pulled out her spear and unfolded it and aimed it straight at Neo's heart, and threw. Neo had just managed to unfold her parasol's canopy when the spear was already flying towards her, and to her astonishment, the tip of the spear pierced the canopy. It was a small hole, unnoticeable to anyone just looking, but it was a hole, nonetheless. If Indigo could make a hole in the strongest shield Neo had ever seen, imagine what she could do to her if Neo's aura ran out. It wasn't the best thought to be having mid battle. Neo shook the spear out of her parasol, jumped to her feet and unsheathed her sword from the shaft of her parasol all in one swift motion, ready for a fight. In accordance with her semblance requirements, two henchmen appeared from behind the bar, swords drawn. _No guns this time round then, eh? Guess there isn't the sound of a busy market to mask gunshots, is there? _One of the men vaulted the bar and ran towards her, as the other rounded the bar the proper way and came from behind her. They both converged on her at the same time, both swinging their swords in sync. Neo dropped into splits, letting the two clash swords in true dumb henchmen fashion, and slashed at the shins of one whilst kicking out at a kneecap of the other, causing them both to recoil in pain and give Neo time to stand regain the proper footing. Indigo had retrieved her spear by this point and was waiting in the wings for her 'trusted' backup to fail miserably. Neo swung at one man's chest, knocking him further away from her and threw her sword into the air, letting it spin whilst she punched the same man square in the face, making his bright yellow aura fizzle, approaching critically low levels. It was almost sad how a common criminal could go for years committing petty crimes and training their aura to what they think is a high level, only for them to get completely schooled by someone with the underworld equivalent of huntress training. The man made a last-ditch attempt to at least make contact with Neo, but as he was mid swing her sword came down and bonked him in the forehead, handle side down. Neo seized her opportunity, focused her aura to her hands and gripped her sword by the blade. She had noticed the glass that the bartender was cleaning had been left on the bar, and she used the crook of the handle to fling the glass straight into the side of the second man's face, just as the first man's body hit the ground. He definitely wasn't dead, and due to who she was fighting, Neo would have to see to that issue later. The second man seemed determined to put up a better fight and brought his sword around for a swing straight at Neo's sword, driving the unimaginably sharp blade of the sword straight into her hand. She winced in pain and dropped her weapon, quickly using the second half of her parasol to smack the man square in the temple, causing his aura to fizzle just as the other's had, except this time it was a deep shade of green. Neo picked up her sword from the ground and stabbed the man in the stomach, shattering his aura completely, and then she sliced at his throat, cutting it clean through his Adam's apple. Blood sprayed over the right side of Neo's face, causing a sadistic grin to form. This was exactly where she loved to be, right in her element. And this time, she actually _had _to kill them all, and for a good reason, too. With blood down her jacket and face, she turned to face the woman of the hour; Indigo. Indigo shook her head and tutted, clearly disappointed in something, except Neo couldn't tell whether it was an attempt to shame her fighting style or sheer disappointment in her henchmen. She kept up with the 'kill first, talk later' mentality and came straight at Neo, using her spear's superior range to keep the hits coming – all of which she gracefully dodged – and to not allow Neo to get a hit in herself. Neo made the mistake of using the same move twice, as she shattered and reappeared behind Indigo once again. Despite how she may have seemed, Indigo wasn't stupid, and saw it coming a mile away. She caught Neo in the arm with the blade of her spear and followed up by spinning it around and hitting Neo in the head with the blunt end. Neo using her disappearing act more than twice during a single fight was dangerous, as it was quite taxing on her aura, and even more so now she had taken hits. She realised she had to end the fight quickly, as the cut in her side was still leaking blood and the cracked ribs definitely weren't getting any less broken. She regained what stance she could with her multiple injuries, now with minor head trauma added to the list, and used the canopy half of the parasol to block the incoming blow from the spear. She took whatever opportunity she could get a hold of and stabbed at Indigo's exposed leg, causing her to drop to one knee, which then gave her an angle to catch Neo's leg, making her drop to one knee as well. The two women took a split second to admire the situation they were both in, both injured and beaten, and both one knee down and staring into each other's eyes. Neo dropped the blocking half of the parasol and struck Indigo's fighting arm with the tip of her blade, causing her to drop her spear. Indigo used her superior size to wrench Neo's sword out of her hand, and punched her right in the nose, causing her aura to shatter completely. Neo's blade had landed wedged in between the floorboards, sticking out like an incredibly deadly nail, as if it had a fighting mind of its own. Both women were left with little options, and they traded a couple punches each, with Neo's nose starting to bleed and Indigo's aura finally fizzling away and shattering. Neo needed to put an end to this pub brawl before things got any worse, and so she grabbed Indigo's collar with both hands and pulled her down to eye level, before headbutting her right between the eyes. Indigo was undoubtedly surprised and probably concussed, as she fell straight backwards. Her arm fell straight onto Neo's sword, skewering it. Neo took a moment to recollect her thoughts, before standing up and taking a deep breath. Indigo had started screaming, a blood curdling scream that likely made it out into the street, probably attracting the attention of anyone in a mile radius. With no aura to protect her from the pain, she was in complete agony. Neo strolled over, making sure to give Indigo enough time to wallow in excruciating pain as her muscles were torn apart as she squirmed, staying true to her brand of sadism. Neo grabbed the base of the blade that was underneath Indigo's arm and pulled outwards, completely severing her limb in half. This motion cut Neo's hand to ribbons, but she was already in too much pain to notice. Indigo stopped screaming and began crying, like a baby who needed a nap. Neo was almost disgusted at the fact that someone who had seemed unphased by the idea of a teammate's death could be so heartbroken about their own. Not forgetting about her semblance, Neo stumbled over to the first man who lay unconscious on the floor, barely hanging on to consciousness herself. With barely any energy to spare, she picked up Indigo's spear and plunged it into the man's heart, finishing him off for good. She would have used her own weapon, but she was saving that for Indigo. She turned and walked back to Indigo and knelt down by her side. As Neo raised her sword over her head, Indigo started to beg for mercy, like some kind of child begging for a new toy.

"I- I'll get you whatever, anything, any_one_, just please, let me live! I'm no use to you if I'm dead, right?"

_You're no use to me, period. Dead or alive, you're worthless either way._ _If only I could say that to you and see your final reaction as you realised you died with nothing of value to your name. You'll be forgotten, Just like every other second-rate criminal. _

She brought the blade down, driving it straight through her lungs, causing her to gasp for air as Neo twisted the blade inside of her and stood up, pulling the blade out only once Indigo had stopped gurgling her own blood. After all, the best way to kill a vampire is to drive a stake through it. She walked over to the bar, grabbed some whiskey from the highest shelf she could reach, poured herself a shot and downed it in one. She tossed the whiskey on the floor and searched for something more… _flammable_. She pulled a bottle of absinthe out from beneath the counter and poured a trail from the bar, to Indigo, to the door. Neo had known how this whole journey was going to end from the start, with blood and flames. Two enemies, fighting down to their last legs (literally) in a foreign land, the only thing separating life from death; a silver sword. Poetic. At least, more poetic than a damn nursery rhyme. Neo collected her parasol pieces and sheathed her sword. She walked over to one of the henchmen and took his handgun from its holster, finding a couple fire dust rounds in his back pocket and chambering one. She took a final look around the room, covered in wood splinters, broken tables, dead bodies and a_ lot_ of blood. There was blood everywhere, covering the space from the bar to the stairs, wall to wall. It might have traumatised some people, but being raised on the streets gave you a certain resilience to gore, and in Neo's case, a deranged sort of pleasure from it. She cracked a small smirk, admiring her handiwork, before taking a single step outside, turning, aiming the gun at the trail of alcohol and pulling the trigger. The fire dust round lit up the doorway in an instant, and the trail of alcohol quickly lit the remainder of the inn alight, destroying any evidence that anyone had been there. Neo tossed the handgun into the flames behind her, as she wasn't exactly a firearms kinda girl. As the flames licked the walls of the building behind her, a woman appeared in the street ahead, with two more henchmen behind her, sporting the same colours the dead man on the balcony was. Neo reached for her parasol, ready to take on more opponents at a moments notice, despite being terribly injured, bleeding out, barely holding onto consciousness and just starting to get her aura back. The woman in front of her had blonde, chin-length hair, without a fringe. She was a bit on the heavier side, by the looks of things, and wore an ankle length purple dress, which frilled out at the hem. The top half of the dress left little to the imagination, showing off about as much cleavage as humanly possible without being indecent, and the long sleeves that extended from the dress were lacking shoulders, exposing the symbol that had been Neo's guiding light in the past couple days. _That damn spider tattoo._

"Don't worry, pretty girl." The woman started, "I'm not here to fight. Now, I was gonna let you try and solve the riddle, but it seems you may be what we call a… _high profile _target." _Well that sure is one way to put it._

"I apologise for what is now my... _ex-_employee. I'm Lil' Miss Malachite, and I understand you want somebody found."

* * *

**I was thinking about going right up to where Neo and Cinder meet, but I'd have to fill a fair bit of time with useless filler, and I feel like this kinda wraps everything up in one neat little bow.**

**Also, I'm not gonna lie to you, I was kinda getting bored of this one story every week, but I also didn't want to just let it sit dead in the water like some stories end up, so I ended it here. The extra chapter or so would probably just be a timeskip to the day of the meeting anyway.**

**Thanks to everyone that read through this shite from the start, and to anyone that cares, I'll definitely 100% be writing some Whiterose fluff next. 110%.**


End file.
